Public services, digitilisation and equity of access: The Mersey Gateway: A Bridge to prosperity?

Increasing sums of public money are spent beyond the state’s direct control as part of various

public-private arrangements delivering public services. Academic research shows these

arrangements can incur unexpected costs for taxpayers and service users and reduce equitable

access to services. This paper constructs a public interest counter account in response to issues

around public accountability and digitilisation with regard to social equity, inclusion and

vulnerable users raised by the opening of the Mersey Gateway. This is a new tolled bridge

crossing over the River Mersey in North-West England, one of the UK’s poorer regions, which

has also seen the removal of the previous free alternative, the requirement for digital payment

of the toll and the frequency of levying of fines for failure to pay. Given that around 20% of

the Mersey Gateway’s income comes from fines, a percentage figure remaining largely

constant since the opening of the bridge in 2017, this raises questions about how and why such

volumes of fines continue to occur. In addition, when tolling has been discontinued in other

UK regions, it is notable that many citizens of this relatively deprived region of England now

have no viable free route across the Mersey River.

The paper seeks to examine the impact of digitilisation on the vulnerable in public sector

delivery, whilst unpicking the complex organisational structures surrounding the contractual

arrangements. Such an approach makes visible how the vulnerable incur higher costs whilst

private companies benefit from this bespoke contract, not only through the profits inherent in

the unitary charge, but also through the complex financial arrangements.